More than a million people are expected to make the journey to the Rodrigo de Freitas in Rio de Janeiro between now and 6 January to see the night sky lit up by a Christmas display that includes an 85m high, 542-tonne floating metal tree as tall as a 28-storey building. Built by Brazil's largest insurance company, Bradesco Seguros, it's based on the theme of the four seasons and supports a 105km r...
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CHILDREN'S online privacy is back in the headlines in the US, on the back of a worrying report from the Federal Trade Commission into use of youngsters' personal data by apps on mobile devices. It's all part of the much bigger issue of kids and technology, and here too recent EU-sponsored research says it detected that 40 per cent of British children have exhibited at least one sign of excessive I...
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TWENTY YEARS on, the European single market in air travel is truly an EU success story, resulting in cheap short-haul flights across the whole continent. But now the European Commission has highlighted a grievous failure in aviation reform: the inability of many member states to drop their national air traffic control prerogatives for a regionalised system. The deadline was 4 December. If that had...
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AFTER A GREAT deal of consulting, pontificating and internal budget wrangling, the UK government finally released its much vaunted Energy Bill on 29 November. But after all the expectations it failed to catch the imagination of the sector and faced a mixed reception from the power industry.
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My opening position is that i don't necessarily see the future of newspapers as one or the other. We will carry on buying newspapers, that's for sure, and if the paywall turns out to be the most viable way of making them financially sound then of course that will be a major part of the mix. But if over the next five years publishers can find another way to make newspapers pay for themselves as a v...
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We find ourselves at a crossroads in the 130-year history of the UK electricity system. Having emerged from the 19th century with a chaotic and centralised electrical heritage, followed by an established centralised order for most of the 20th century dominated by fossil fuels, we find ourselves in the midst of another revolution. Or perhaps several evolutions.
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The power of the ocean is apparent to all and we are now much closer to harnessing that energy to power our lifestyle. According to the British Cartographic Society the length of coastline of Great Britain plus its principal islands is just shy of 20,000 miles, so it comes as no surprise that marine energy is considered to hold great potential as a future energy source. According to research by Th...
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The smart grid continues to evolve as the network faces the challenges of new patterns of generation. One proposal that has been championed for several decades is the Smart Grid, an often elusive concept that has remained the same despite having had to suffer numerous rebrands over the years: the intelligent grid, the self-healing grid, and soon. The essence is always the same: it is really a grid...
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The energy supply industry is gearing up for a mass rollout of smart meters across the UK, but should reports of smart-meter fire-related incidents be a cause for concern? The energy supply sector, like all infrastructure sectors, is draped in red tape. But despite the complex web of meetings between regulators, civil servants, energy companies and other interested parties, the sector is in danger...
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Google's data-centres, the biggest in the world, could easily set the bar for an industry-wide standard, apart from the fact that it builds everything itself. Wet, red and blue: water pipes in one of Google's biggest US data centres, based at Dalles, Oregon. These corporate colour-coded pipes are responsible for carrying water in and out of the site. The blue pipes supply cold water and the red pi...
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TODAY THE UK'S workforce totals 28 million, of which, according to Petra Wilton, "it's estimated that five million are managers. Within that there is a significant population - around 20 per cent - in the science, engineering and technology (SET) sector". These people tend to be technical experts who have developed management skills rather than professional managers entering the sector.
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Recent terrorist attacks on infrastructure have highlighted the vulnerability of our rail and road networks, reinforcing the importance of good risk assessments to protect some of our biggest assets.
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